Sunday, February 8, 2009

House Intel Committee Member Reveals Secret Iraq Trip on Twitter

Forget anonymous leaks -- official Twitter feeds are now a source of classified government information.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., helped the increasingly popular micro-blogging outlet reach a new milestone Friday, when he reported on a congressional trip to Iraq on his Twitter feed -- a trip that was supposed to be a secret.

"Heading to Iraq and Afghanistan weds night.I'll update on twitter and web pg as links are available.I'll ne back in touch mid next week," the House Intelligence Committee member wrote Tuesday.

And then, one day later, the Republican wrote: "Just landed in Baghdad. I believe it may be first time I've had bb service in Iraq. 11 th trip here."

Both of those "tweets," along with others, went against what Hoekstra had been told before leaving Washington D.C.: to keep the trip a secret. Various media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly and the Watertown Daily Times, had agreed not to disclose the trip until the the congressional delegation left Iraq.

But Hoekstra broke the story himself, so the Agence France Press noticed the representative's public-record tweets and reported on the trip.

After averaging 2-3 tweets per day earlier in the week, Hoekstra hasn't posted since Friday afternoon. Perhaps the former chairman of the House's intelligence panel -- who is routinely entrusted with some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets -- was embarrassed.

But the delegation's trip appeared to be an educational one, according to Hoekstra's last tweet: